Review: Lego Star Wars

Whether your a casual gamer or a hardcore gamer, or indeed, anyone you can’t deny that there is a little bit of Geek inside you. So when Edios released Lego Star Wars last year, you did let out a squeal of joy didn’t you?

Good.

You see, the melding of two of the most popular brands was always going to be a winner, and then this video game vresion seeks to up the ante, and cranks up the fun to ten. Sure, it’s not exactly too taxing for the brain, but Traveller’s Tales have done a sterling job with not underestimating it’s young target audience, and as a result have produced a rarity – a “kids” game that anyone, whether it’s your six year old sister right up to ol’ Granny can pick up and play. And most importantly, enjoy it. Long time Star Wars fans will pick up on every little nuance the game makes, and you can’t help but smile when, during the scene where Darth Maul meets his maker – whreas in the movie he was sliced in half, here he is indeded, sliced in half – but as this is Lego, the feet remain with the little sticky-outy Lego bits we know so well.

Like most Star Wars games, there will always be the appeal of lightsaber action, and LSW doesn’t dissapoint in this category, even though the button presses required are (realtively) simple, the moves feel fluid and the effect looks very nice, and you can’t help but smile when you dispatch a foe, especially when they explode into lots of tiny Lego pieces. The graphics do indeed show this off well. Forget all your fancy effects and “HDR” here. This looks like Lego, as it should be, and the bright and cheery style may put older gamers off at first, but it just feels, well right. Almost everything has been recreated in the virtual Lego, and somehow it manages to capture that feeling you get when you play with the real stuff. -Come on, don’t tell me you never played out scenes from the movies with it? wink

There’s certainly a lot to do in Lego Star Wars as well. The main game comprises of playing through Episodes One, Two and Three – the newer trilogy of movies, always as two charcters. Why two? Well, for one thing a few of the puzzles require more than one person to complete, and secondly because the game has a nifty two player drop in/out feature. Indeed, while you’re playing, even if it’s mid-way through the level, another player may just press start and jump right in. And if he has to go, he can just quit and the AI will take over control of his character. It’s a great feature – and if someone’s watching over you shoudler while you’re playing, expect this feature to be used quite often. Even then, once you’ve completed the main story you can revisit every level with ANY two charcters you have unlocked so far, letting you into new areas and letting you collect the bonuses – as most of the characters have unique abilites that let them get to places the others can’t.

Which brings us onto the only real failing of the game. In every level there are 10 “bonus pieces” to find, and once you have all ten, a new viechle is parked in the hub area for you to look at. In additon, if you collect so many studs in a level, you can get a piece towards another secret, charcaters and lots of other bonuses you can buy from the in game store. In theory these are all good ways to get you to increase the longevity of the game. In practise they can get rather annoying as the levels, ableit fun the first time, may not be enough to stimulate older minds into playing through them again. Add to this the fact that the ships are for display purposes only, and you feel a little less inclined to make that second journey through Naboo.

However Lego Star Wars is great fun to play, and well worth a purchase, whether you’re 12, 24 or 62 – the game is a great laugh and heck, it’s going for around fifteen quid nowadays, so go on. Shed that “cool” exterior and treat your Inner Geek. Plus, it will help whet your appetite for the recently announced sequel, set in the Original Trilogy timeline, due for a release later this year.